BACKGROUND: Identifying factors affecting nursing students' adjustment to the internship conditions can enable nursing officials to make important decisions that can help students benefit more from their internship period according to expected goals.
OBJECTIVES: The present study was conducted to explain the facilitating and inhibiting factors of nursing students' adjustment to the internship.
DESIGN: The qualitative content analysis approach was used.
SETTING: The present study was conducted at a nursing and midwifery school affiliated with a large metropolitan medical university in northern Iran.
PARTICIPANTS: A total of 17 final-year nursing students who did morning shifts during the week and a day-long (morning and evening) shift per week, were selected through purposive sampling with maximum variation.
METHODS: Data were collected over 17 months through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, then carefully transcribed and analyzed using Graneheim & Lundman qualitative content analysis approach.
RESULTS: Support systems, the internship structure and its setting, and personal and professional factors were the three themes identified as facilitators and barriers of adjustment.
CONCLUSION: According to the results, factors affecting students' adjustment to internship manifest their effect over a continuum, in the form of adequate/poor support, high/low self-efficacy, and appropriate/inappropriate internship structure and setting. Moreover, support systems are among the most important factors affecting nursing students' adjustment to the internship. Furthermore, the role of hospital staff in accepting or rejecting the conditions and issues that participants face during their internship is very important.
